Page 68 of Vipers and Vendettas

We hear the floorboards upstairs creaking.

‘Could be now,’ she amends, getting up and pouring another mug of the tea out of the teapot. I watch as she grabs a jar of honey out of the cupboard over the kettle and drizzles a spoonful into the cup before giving it a stir. She sets it on the table.

I hear Iron coming down the stairs slowly a few seconds later.

‘Gigi? Are you down here?’ he calls.

‘In the kitchen,’ she replies.

He comes in, having to duck his head a little to get through the doorway.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks me as soon as he sees me.

I nod because that’s the easiest thing to do right now. I take another sip of my tea as Iron sits down and puts his hands around his own mug absently.

‘Areyouokay?’ I ask, nodding at the dab of blood on his shirt where the dart went in.

‘A little groggy, but otherwise fine.’

He side-eyes me and opens his mouth to say something else but closes it again, not speaking.

His nanna bustles around the kitchen.

‘So you’re having a babe?’ she asks Iron as she adds some salt to a pot on the stove.

He looks surprised and shakes his head.

‘No, it’s not … it’s complicated.’

Gigi cackles but doesn’t say anything more.

Iron takes a drink and closes his eyes as he swallows, a small smile playing on his lips. He looks over at his grandmother. ‘You remembered how I like it,’ he says. ‘After all this time?’

‘Of course, I did,’ she says, sounding a little indignant. ‘As if I’d forget how my favorite grandson likes his tea.’

He raises a brow. ‘My mom said she forgets things,’ he murmurs to me. ‘She doesn’t remember they made me leave.’

‘Oh,’ I say, looking at the old woman who’s now staring dreamily out the window. ‘She seemed pretty switched on when she had the shotgun.’

He shrugs, looking at Gigi sadly. ‘She’s lost most of her magick too.’

I frown at his words that don’t ring true. ‘Iron, she used a ton of magick while I was in the bathroom,’ I whisper.

‘That’s not possible. My mom said?—’

‘There was blood all over the place up there,’ I interrupt, looking away as I start feeling queasy again. ‘Five minutes later, there was no trace of it.’

He frowns at me, forgetting about his nanna for the moment.

‘What?’ he says, sitting back in his chair and putting down his cup. ‘All that really just happened? But you … I thought … I don’t know what I thought, but I figured it didn’t go the way I think it did because of the dart ...’

I look down at my hands, remembering how I felt when I woke up after the Mountain, how I thought my escape couldn’t have happened the way I recalled it.

‘Holy shit,’ I whisper. ‘I really killed Dante. I killed the Demon King.’

Iron shakes his head like he can’t understand what I’m saying. ‘You what?’

‘I thought it couldn’t have happened the way I thought. He was killing Siggy.’